July 3, 2020 Grave Musings 4: Oak Ridge Cemetery

Previously: Grave Musings 3 Oak Ridge Sneak Preview

I’d been in this cemetery a couple times before, but only driving through. I invited friends Lori and Teresa to join me, both cemetery enthusiasts. Lori came equipped with a list of cemetery symbols and what they mean, which was very helpful. Teresa, in spite of Google Maps trying to thwart her plans, managed to find the cemetery – amazing when you consider that Google directed her to a different cemetery on the other side of town. We got our mosquito spray on and began the meandering.

Oak Ridge was established on September 11, 1857 and occupies a 10-acre parcel of rolling hills with shady grounds and paved roads. It’s a lovely setting. The cemetery is overseen by a board of volunteers, whose services include mowing, cleaning, watering flowers and plants and general grounds-keeping, as well as keeping records and doing other administrative types of work. We met one of the board members while we were there – she had come to water some plants. Like any good board member, she tried to recruit us and answered our questions. She asked if we’d be interested in a tour if the board decided to put one together. Yes, please. She told us how much work had been involved in cleaning up downed trees from last year’s storm.

One of the younger board members wants to do a carving on the tall stump that remains.

So, what do you do when you visit a cemetery? You look at gravestones, you connect families by names, you do some math and determine ages and relationships, you take note of symbols, statues (if there are any), monuments, interesting details, epitaphs. You think about the people and the history that they represent. Sometimes you clear away grass that has encroached on a flat-lying marker. Sometimes, if you are especially dedicated, you do a little research on notable or prominent people buried there.

Oak Ridge had two lovely old stone buildings. One was a well house:

And the other one was larger and tucked under a hill – sort of like a hobbit house, Lori observed. We found out from the board member, Linda, that this used to be a holding vault, a place to store caskets in the winter until the ground softened enough in the spring to dig the graves. It’s now used to store equipment. Teresa and Lori got up close and personal, trying to see into it. Linda told us that both buildings had been broken into somewhat recently.

Among the notables at Oak Ridge are the Nutting family. Truman Nutting and his family came from New England to Minnesota in the spring of 1854. His wife died that same year in St. Anthony Falls (Minneapolis), after which Truman and his children came to Faribault. I believe Truman Nutting was one of the founders of Oak Ridge Cemetery.

Major Michael Cook is also buried here. Born in 1828 in New Jersey, he came with his parents to Faribault in 1855. He served as a state senator from 1858-1862 and it was said of him that “Honesty in him was personified.” He became part of the Minnesota Tenth company in the Civil War and lost his life on the battlefield in Nashville, Tennessee in December of 1864. “The memory of very few deceased men who ever lived in Faribault is more warmly cherished than that of Major Cook.”

We went downhill and then back up again. By this time it was decidedly warm and we were starting to feel peckish. Time for a picnic! It was while we were eating that Linda arrived and came over to chat us up.

We did a little more meandering after lunch and came across a stone that had us all puzzled as to the relationships represented.

Usually, when a man’s name and a woman’s name are across from each other on a stone, it denotes a married couple, but the age differences were kind of weird: she was 22 years older than he was. It wasn’t unthinkable, but it was out of the ordinary, especially for the time in which they were living. And then there was the woman’s name in the middle. Daughter? Granddaughter? Teresa did some research later and discovered that Rachel was mother to Oscar, who gave up bachelorhood at 61 years of age to marry 20-year-old Delta, producing a daughter, Elizabeth. Well, you just never know. If you take up cemetery visiting, be prepared to do some sleuthing.

It was so much fun having friends with me that I’m not sure now how to go on without them. How about a round of applause for my wonderful friends!

I’m trying to keep up with my watercolor journal for these visits as well:

Thanks for joining us! Next: Grave Musings 5 Rice County Poor Farm

Start at beginning: Grave Musings 1 Maple Lawn I

I’ll probably delete this in the morning.